Trouble Under Venus Read online

  It was so tiny, I was amazed he’d noticed it. “Um, Rollerblading. When I first learned.”

  “You didn’t wear kneepads.” It wasn’t a question, so much as a statement of fact, and a judgmental one at that.

  “I—well, I had them. But I was practicing in my garage and didn’t think I needed ’em yet.” In fact, I’d crashed into the plastic milk crate where I’d stowed all my pads and helmet. But I wouldn’t share that irony with Mitch. A guy who wore a bike helmet was serious about his safety gear. He didn’t need any more evidence to add to his self-righteous arsenal. “You know, every time you talk to me, you piss me off.”

  “Hey,” he said with a laugh. “It was only a character observation. You don’t always exercise the precautions you know you should.”

  Like going off on a Jeep ride with the sexy serial killer next door. Good planning, Randi. Damn. Even he saw my folly. I crossed my arms and watched the brush passing by on the side of the road. How had I become so stupid and careless? Sex versus sense, sex takes all. Maybe I could catch the attention of somebody in the RV and make my escape.

  “I’m not saying it’s a flaw,” he said. “You can’t go through life playing it safe all the time. I don’t really mean to piss you off. But it is fun sometimes.”

  I couldn’t resist looking at him again. His eyes were so damn sincere behind those glasses. A smidge of spitefulness prodded me. “It would be safer for you to take off those fake glasses and wear your shades.”

  “Um. Fake?” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “Geez, Mitch. They fall off your head like ten times each yoga session. You insist on wearing them for that, but you don’t wear them to ride a bike through a city?”

  “Maybe they’re for reading.”

  “God. Then you wouldn’t need them now. I can tell they aren’t prescription, because they don’t make the side of your face any bigger or smaller. I used to need glasses before I got Lasik, so I know.” Time to lay it all out there. “Just like I know you’re not really a volcanologist. So what are you, really?”

  “Not a…?” His voice got much higher. “What are you talking about?”

  “Those books in your room? They’re all about the basics of volcanoes, stuff any volcano specialist can recite in his sleep.”

  “Those are—I can’t believe I’m justifying myself to a Peeping Tom, but they’re for a friend of mine.” Not the old friend line! “He’s teaching a unit on volcanoes to kids. To a…Boy Scout troop. And he wanted me to look over the books and recommend one.” With a lurch, he downshifted and took an opportunity to pass the RV.

  I didn’t buy his story. He wasn’t knowledgeable enough about volcanoes, and we both knew it. For whatever reason, he was determined to maintain his cover.

  “So,” he yelled above the revving motor as he raced up the hill, “you think I’m lying about who I am, but you climbed in a vehicle with me?”

  The condescending safety-first tone again.

  “I guess I don’t always exercise the precautions I should!” After that, I turned as far away from him in my seat as I could.

  He slowed, chuckling. “You’re safe with me.”

  I really wanted to believe him. Making out and having a picnic would sure beat the hell out of running away and having to hitch a ride down the mountain in order to escape a killer.

  “You don’t think the glasses are believable?”

  “I really doubt anybody else has figured out they aren’t prescription.” Why I should be reassuring him, I did not know.

  He nodded and looked over at me as if deep in thought. “You’re very observant.”

  “Another character observation?”

  “Yep. And you’ve got great legs, too.”

  My temperature went up a notch, in spite of my resolve to fear and loathe him. “That’s not a character trait. But thanks, for saying so.”

  “Thanks for having them.”

  Boy, what a line! Not that I’d complain. Funny how Mitch’s lines didn’t give me the creeps like Lonnie’s cheesy come-ons.

  Almost to the top of the mountain, the road had straightened. With his right hand, he pulled my left one from my lap. “I reh—heard you recently divorced.”

  This last comment hung in the air, awaiting my reply. I’d developed a lengthy explanation to give acquaintances, over the last few months, trying mightily to not place blame in the process. With Mitch, I hoped a simple answer would suffice. “He wanted me to play it safe and I couldn’t.” When he nodded, I let out a sigh of relief. “What about you? Any failed marriages under your belt?”

  He grinned. “Never heard it put that way before. Nope. My job includes lots of travel.”

  Another simple answer. It felt good. Maybe we could have a simple, no-strings fling and then go on our respective journeys.

  Dear Randi,

  OH! I am LIVID! That Mitchell is up to no good, I know it. He tricked me into going up a mountain with him for a romantic dinner and parking and watching the sunset, which I was all for. But when we get up there and park, he turns to me and says we really need to clear something up first. And guess what? Because of what Lonnie plans to do when he goes back in time, Mitch wants me to get Lonnie thrown out of the program. I told him it wasn’t my business and he actually said if I don’t nark Lonnie out, then he is going to. So then I asked him if he was working for the government and he started stammering. I told him I have him all figured out. He’s a Fed. Sudo keeps telling us the Feds want to shut him down; they don’t like civilians having his kind of ability. Mitchell was trying to find out from me today where Sudo is going next—Sudo specifically told us this afternoon he can’t say ahead of time where he is going because he’s afraid of sabotage. But Mitchell seems to think I have special privileges with Sudo. So anyway, after I accused him, he actually looked at me, and if you can believe it, said if anybody was putting the operation at risk of being shut down, it was me because I had knowledge a person planned to break every rule and wasn’t holding up my sworn obligation to help enforce them. That guy! He turns everything back on me.

  Needless to say, we never achieved the Near Miss Kiss. Although I did invite him to kiss my ass in a rather unfriendly tone. We turned around and drove back down here, and when he tried to give me some of the chicken, I told him to shove it.

  I am so damn hungry now. I missed the buffet dinner and Tim has gone home for the night so I can’t get a ride to town. The vending machines are my only option, I’m afraid.

  Shithead just went out his door. Must be all done eating that big old greasy, yummy dinner by now. God, to think I really wanted to kiss that guy.

  Okay. I heard him splash in the pool. I’ll go get my candy now. But no way am I looking at him swimming. No way.

  Note to self: You were right about not getting involved with him.

  Chapter 5

  “Just my luck.” Snickers was sold out. Wishing I had enough change on me to buy all the rest of the Nut Rolls in case Mitchell had a late-night snack attack, I settled for the two I could get.

  This time, I made sure not to look at the pool as I walked back to my room. “Good night then, Mr. Goodman,” I sneered to myself in belated reply to the “Goodnight then, Ms. Reed” he’d issued earlier when I’d left him and the Jeep in the parking lot. Not laying my eyes on the pool forced me to look at his patio, on the way to my own. “Goodman, huh!” Some last name. Hey, that reminded me...how’d he know my last name that first day? Did he have some file on me in his room?

  I stopped in my tracks, the Ponderosa I’d hid behind the night before between me and the pool. If he had data on me, maybe, just maybe, he had something else incriminating in there. Proof he was here to sabotage Sudo’s program. He must be, since he seemed intent on distracting Sudo’s star pupil—me—from making progress. But why hadn’t he halted the program that first day, when he got the dirt on Lonnie? Maybe he needed to have irrefutable proof, for me to tell Sudo and Sudo to not disqualify Lonnie before he could bust him.


  “Maybe, maybe.” I could hear his strokes out in the water, smooth and regular. Going on, doing business as usual, while poised to screw up my lifelong dream of meeting my father. If the program got shut down, I’d never get another chance.

  He’d swim for at least thirty minutes. Easily enough time for me to get in his room and find out once and for all what he was really here for.

  Rather than chance a squeak by opening his patio gate, I climbed over it, using all the stealthy ability I could muster. Awesome luck! He’d left his door unlocked.

  Once inside his room, I could hear my heart hammering in my chest. The overpowering smell of leftover chicken reminded me how hungry I was. And it was all his fault I’d missed dinner, the jerk.

  He’d left only the light in the bathroom on, so I had to squint to see. There on the nightstand sat the books he was supposedly reviewing for his friend. Eerie-quiet in here, not so much as the fan running in the wall AC unit. There. On the bed…a closed laptop. In Sleep Mode. I lifted the screen. When it hummed to life without a password, I let out my breath. While the icons loaded, I looked around the room once more. Barring a thorough rummage through his drawers, nothing else seemed snoop-worthy. The laptop was most likely to yield incriminating evidence.

  “Shit.” He may have left his room unlocked, but not his files. I had no idea where to even start guessing the password.

  Maybe his email would open. Hmm. Meticulously empty Inbox, but a message was loading. Anything of interest in his Deleted Items folder? Geez, his computer was slower than mine. Scrolling down, I found he’d emptied his Deleted items. Figured. Not surprising from a guy who’d actually write down addresses and directions to tanning salons. Naturally, he’d emptied his Sent folder, too. But ahhh, the message was Done Loading. A click back to the Inbox highlighted one message with attachments, the subject of which read: Re: M. Reed, Level 3 bkgrnd chk.

  Without thinking twice, I clicked on the message.

  Wheels,

  Alert: Watch your step around this one, buddy! She won the science fair in seventh grade for a working model of a volcano, still on display at the school. Could be a serious threat to your cover.

  Ha! No kidding.

  The first attachment was my school ID photo. From the names of the next two attachments, I knew they were photos I did not want to look at: mugshots. The last attachment was labeled “criminal record”. I’d leave that one ’til after I read the rest of the main message. Mitch’s steady strokes continued to splash outside. Legs crossed under me, I got comfy, tore open one of the Nut Rolls and started munching.

  This character ‘Speed’, who’d sent the message, organized his data in neat columns.

  Miranda M. Reed, aka Miranda Montclair, aka Randi Montclair-Reed

  DOB: March 17, 1978

  Profession: Primary school teacher, Grade 3, same school for 6 years

  Address: 710 6th. St.—a small 2 bedroom single family home—7 months

  Prior Add: 1259 Cty Rd 8—4 years, with former husband, David Montclair

  Marital: Divorced 1 month, separated approx. 7 months

  Parents: Mother, Tina M. Reed age 47

  Father, deceased, date unknown, declared 1983

  Siblings: by stepfather, Joel Reed

  Brother—John

  Sister—Melissa

  Current Lifestyle: Modest. Habitual. Shops at same grocery every Thursday, pays with same debit card, between $75-$90. Every Wednesday, $9.76 at Blockbuster.

  Book-of-the-month member

  Fruit-of-the-month member

  Panty-of-the-month member—yowza!

  Member, Curves for Women

  Deposits max allowable into teacher pension fund, also Christmas account.

  Vehicle: 2002 Toyota Tacoma 4wd., Red, license plate THRLRID—Database suggests “thrill ride”.

  Credit score: 690. No, she never misses a payment.

  Medical: No known conditions. Has annual physical and eye exam on birthday without fail.

  Takes one flying lesson the first weekend of every odd month. Holds one-tenth interest in an Ultra-lite Glider.

  Driver’s License, class C plus motorcycle endorsement.

  I paused long enough to take a swig of Pepsi, then ripped open the other candy bar. How invasive for someone to analyze my entire life like this. I should delete it when I was finished. But knowing Mitch, he’d email this contact and have the message re-sent, so what was the point? The laptop fan quieted.

  Soft splashes echoed from the pool.

  Next up: My school records. God. Good thing I had sustenance in my hands.

  GPA upon graduation—3.5

  Above-mentioned science fair win in 7th grade.

  High school, member French Club, Spanish Club, Cheerleader grade 9 only, Girls’ basketball team every year. Honor roll with 4.0 GPA until senior year. Finished American Gov’t with a 71%. Received zeros for last 4 weeks of class.

  Disciplinary: Suspension, 1 day, senior year, for cutting school. Gone skydiving!

  In-school suspension, 1 day, cheating on American Gov’t. test. —Note: Subject was providing answers to Swedish exchange student. When asked which questions she helped with so he could be graded on a curve, Reed refused to disclose the facts.

  Old news. None of it could possibly be relevant to anything I did now. All that remained was the rap sheet. With a whir, the computer fan started again. I hadn’t realized how quiet it had been. Might as well face my history and see what Mitch would soon know about me.

  Criminal record, Miranda M. Reed.

  1992: Trespassing to build an illegal—

  With a rough jerk, my left arm was pinned behind my back, my right thrust tight into my chest. My mouthful of candy lodged in my throat. I hacked and struggled.

  “You have the right to remain silent, a right I have no doubt you’ll forfeit.”

  Mitch. If I didn’t know the voice, his hairless, chlorine-smelling arm would have been a dead give-away.

  At last I got the peanuts swallowed and went lax in his arms. As soon as he loosened his hold, I bucked against him, pinching his belly with my scrunched left hand and trying to duck under his right arm.

  “Hold still or I’ll pin you face down on the bed,” he growled.

  After a few more spastic attempts at freeing myself, I stilled.

  “I can scream loud enough to get security here,” I warned.

  Mitch chuckled against my hair. “Go ahead, if you want me to press charges.”

  “I didn’t take anything.”

  “No, but trust me, you’ll be out of this program faster than you can say ‘breaking and entering’, if I turn you in.”

  I couldn’t, absolutely, couldn’t get expelled from Sudo’s program. I thrashed against him and clutched what felt like the lower end of his six-pack.

  “Dammit!” He shoved me face-down against the lumpy bedspread, pulling my right arm behind me and linking it with the left. Wetness from his Speedo soaked into my shorts as he sat on my rear end. I lay pinned with my head turned to the side, catching my breath. My shirt scrunched way up my backside, and judging by the breeze, my shorts had crept down during the fracas. “Why the hell are you in here?”

  “You’re not a volcanologist.”

  He pushed against my hands. “Jesus!”

  “You work for the government.”

  “Volcanologists can work for the government too. Ever hear of the US Geological Service?”

  “Yeah. That was the lamest story I ever heard of, you needing to go back to get ash samples from the rivers. As if thousands of scientists and meteorologists all over the country didn’t already do that in 1980! Please. It was not the Stone Age. You’re undercover doing something.”

  “So tell me, Endee, what the clues told you?”

  “It’s Randi, dork. Not Andi. And I never said you could call me by my nickname anyway.”

  “Not Andee. En Dee. For Nancy Drew.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, you call me Mitch.” His
grip on my hands loosened as he pulled one of his free and used it to tug my shirt down and then my shorts up. “I wish you’d stayed out of this,” he said, sighing.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  His weight lifted off me. He rolled me over, then pinned my hands over my stomach and sat on my legs. Shaking his head, he looked from my hands to my face, then at my chest. Once again, he adjusted my top, tugging it down toward my shorts. When his hand grazed my bare tummy, I got butterflies. The laptop had gone quiet again and he must have heard my breath catch. His eyes met mine. Without the glasses hiding them, they were a deep green. To my eternal embarrassment, my nipples went hard, tickling against the knit eyelet fabric.

  His turn for the rough sigh.

  My question as to what he intended to do still hung in the air between us.

  I knew what I wanted, what I’d wanted from him almost since the first time he’d spoken to me. That slick body of his pressing mine down into the mattress, his mouth—

  His mouth descended toward mine. When his face was directly above me, he broke into a grin I could only describe as confident and boyish. A dimple appeared on his right cheek as he came lower. He let my hands go, leaned on his forearms on either side of my head, and his fingers brushed hair away from my face. He was still hot from his swim, the warmth radiating out from him to me.

  His mouth was as smooth and firm as the rest of him. He tasted and smelled of pool as his tongue slipped between my lips, then teeth nibbled my upper lip. Sighing a sigh of contentment yet to be had, I opened my mouth to him, met his tongue with mine, arched my body up to meet his damp-suited area.

  He groaned and then sat up. “We’re not wearing enough clothes to be doing this,” he said.

  “Enough? Don’t you mean we’re wearing too much?” My body hummed with desire it hadn’t known in months, maybe in years. I indulged myself and rested my palms on his pecs, which instantly tightened under my touch.

  He gave a wry smile and shook his head. “Let’s see here…” Still seated on me, he moved his gaze to the computer screen. “…the charges for trespassing and building an illegal rope bridge over the Colorado River in 92 were dropped.”